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(WASHINGTON) A U.S. Secret Service agent fired shots near the home of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen early Tuesday morning after a confrontation with occupants in a vehicle near her residence.

At about 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, an agent working in the vicinity of Yellen’s home “observed a sedan with multiple occupants who were attempting to open car doors along the street,” the Secret Service said in a statement.

“As the sedan approached the agent, a confrontation occurred between the agent and the car’s occupants,” the Secret Service said.

The agent fired their weapon, but there is no indication the gunfire struck anyone, the Secret Service said.

The car’s occupants fled the scene, and local police are now looking for them.

“There was no threat to any protectees during this incident and no protectees were harmed,” the Secret Service said.

The incident is now being investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department.

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(NEW YORK) — Daniel Penny “used far too much force for far too long” and though he may be an “honorable veteran” and “nice young man,” he was reckless with Jordan Neely’s life because “he didn’t recognize his humanity,” Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran said in her opening statement Friday during the trial over the fatal chokehold.

“He was aware of the risk his actions would kill Mr. Neely and did it anyway,” Yoran said.

Penny is charged with manslaughter and negligent homicide in the May 2023 death of Neely, a homeless man who was acting erratically on a New York City subway car.

“Jordan Neely took his last breaths on the dirty floor of an uptown F train,” Yoran told a rapt jury.

Neely entered a moderately crowded subway car at the Second Avenue stop and began making threats about hurting people, scaring many of the passengers, Yoran said.

She pointed at Penny as she told the jury, “This man, took it upon himself to take down Jordan Neely. To neutralize him.”

Thirty seconds later, the train arrived at the next station and all the passengers left the train car, except two men who were helping Penny restrain Neely. The prosecutor said Penny hung onto Neely for 51 seconds after Neely’s body went limp.

“By doing so, he pushed Mr. Neely to the point of no return,” Yoran said. “He left Mr. Neely lying on the floor unconscious and didn’t look back.”

Penny has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in Neely’s death. His attorneys have said Neely was “insanely threatening,” but Yoran said Penny’s actions were unnecessarily reckless because he continued the chokehold for 5 minutes and 53 seconds after the subway car was empty of passengers. “A grasp that never changed,” Yoran called it.

“The defendant did not intend to kill him. His initial intent was even laudable,” Yoran said. “But under the law, deadly physical force such as a chokehold is permitted only when it is absolutely necessary and for only as long as is absolutely necessary. And here, the defendant went way too far.”

The prosecutor told jurors they would see video of the chokehold.

“You will see Mr. Neely’s life being sucked out before your very eyes,” Yoran said, appearing to upset one of the jurors who grimaced and briefly shut his eyes.

She also said jurors would see body camera video of Penny’s initial encounter with police, four and a half minutes after letting go of Neely.

When the officer asked Penny what happened, the prosecutor said Penny replied that Neely had been threatening. “Then he said, ‘I just put him out,'” Yoran told the jury.

The defense is set to give its opening statement on Friday following a break.

Protest audible from courtroom

The sounds of a sidewalk protest over the death of Neely were audible in the 13th-floor courtroom ahead of opening statements. Protesters were heard calling Penny a “subway strangler.”

Judge Max Wiley said he would instruct jurors to ignore “noise outside the courthouse.”

Penny, in a slate blue suit, strode confidently into the courtroom and took his seat at the defense table ahead of opening statements.

The jury of seven women and five men, four of whom are people of color, will be asked to do something prosecutors concede is difficult: convict someone of an unintentional crime.

To convict, prosecutors must prove Penny’s use of lethal force was unjustifiable and that Penny acted recklessly and consciously disregarded the substantial risk of putting Neely in the chokehold for so long. Prosecutors do not have to prove Penny intended to kill Neely, which defense attorneys have said Neely did not intend to do.

Wiley denied Penny’s bid to dismiss his involuntary manslaughter case in January.

The trial is expected to last between four and six weeks, according to Wiley.

The case has fueled political narratives about urban crime and captivated a city in which the subway is indispensable.

Differing accounts of the incident

While there is no doubt that Penny’s actions led to Neely’s death on May 1, 2023, witness accounts differ regarding the events that led up to Penny applying the fatal chokehold, according to various sources.

Many witnesses reported that Neely, 30, who was homeless at the time of his death and was known to perform as a Michael Jackson impersonator, had expressed that he was homeless, hungry and thirsty, according to prosecutors. Most of the witnesses also recounted that Neely indicated a willingness to go to jail or prison.

Some witnesses also reported that Neely threatened to hurt people on the train, while others did not report hearing those threats, according to police sources.

Additionally, some witnesses told police that Neely was yelling and harassing passengers on the train. However, others have said that while Neely had exhibited erratic behavior, he had not been threatening anyone in particular and had not become violent, according to police sources who spoke with ABC News following the incident.

According to prosecution court filings, some passengers on the train that day said they didn’t feel threatened. One said they weren’t “really worried about what was going on,” while another called it “like another day typically in New York. That’s what I’m used to seeing. I wasn’t really looking at it if I was going to be threatened or anything to that nature, but it was a little different because, you know, you don’t really hear anybody saying anything like that.”

Other passengers, however, described being fearful, according to court filings. One said they “have encountered many things, but nothing that put fear into me like that,” while another said Neely was making “half-lunge movements” and coming within a “half a foot of people.”

Neely had a documented history of mental health issues and arrests, including alleged instances of disorderly conduct, fare evasion and assault, according to police sources.

Less than 30 seconds after Penny allegedly put Neely into a chokehold, the train arrived at the Broadway-Lafayette Station, according to court records.

“Passengers who had felt fearful on account of being trapped on the train were now free to exit the train. The defendant continued holding Mr. Neely around the neck,” said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass in a court filing objecting to Penny’s dismissal request.

According to prosecutors, footage of the interaction, which began about two minutes after the incident started, captures Penny holding Neely in the chokehold for about four minutes and 57 seconds on a relatively empty train, with a couple of passengers nearby.

Prosecutors said that about three minutes and 10 seconds into the video, Neely ceases all purposeful movement.

“After that moment, Mr. Neely’s movements are best described as ‘twitching and the kind of agonal movement that you see around death,'” prosecutors said.

The case is expected to feature testimony of passengers who were aboard the subway at the time, as well as a roughly six-minute video of the chokehold.

Jury to hear eyewitness statements

Before opening statements on Friday, Wiley granted a defense request to allow some of the statements that eyewitnesses to the chokehold made to police that were captured on body-worn cameras.

One witness, a Ms. Rosario, was captured on body-worn camera 15 minutes after the incident aboard the F train.

“I can see most of that statement coming in as an excited utterance,” Wiley said.

The judge declined to allow a part of her statement in which an officer is heard asking whether she thought Neely was on drugs.

A Mr. Latimer is captured a minute later and Wiley said his statement is “well within the immediacy of the event” and could be admitted.

“This person displays emotion, excitement as he’s describing what happened. It’s narrative,” Wiley said.

Most of the passengers who were aboard the train and who witnessed the event are expected to testify at trial.

Jury will see evidence that Neely did not have a weapon

The judge also previously ruled that the jury will see evidence that shows Neely was unarmed.

Penny’s defense had sought to preclude evidence or testimony about the lack of a weapon recovered from a search of Neely’s body but in a written opinion issued Thursday, Wiley said such evidence and testimony is relevant to the case.

“The fact that Mr. Neely was unarmed provides additional relevant information to aid the jury, namely, it clarifies what could have been perceived by someone in the defendant’s position,” Wiley wrote. “The possibility that a person in the defendant’s situation could have been reasonable in mistakenly believing that Mr. Neely had been armed is appropriate for consideration by the jury and well within their capability.”

The defense worried that including evidence that Neely was unarmed could bolster sympathy for the victim but Wiley said it would help the jury decide whether Penny’s actions were justified.

Penny’s lawyers and Neely’s family speak ahead of the trial

Members of Neely’s family were seated with the spectators for opening statements Friday.

“I loved Jordan. And I want justice for Jordan Neely. I want it today. I want justice for everybody and I want justice for Jordan Neely,” his uncle, Christopher Neely, said before entering court.

Prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office are expected to concede that Neely may have seemed scary to some subway riders, but will argue Penny continued the chokehold well past the point where Neely stopped moving and posed any kind of threat.

Penny’s attorneys have said that they were “saddened at the loss of human life,” but that Penny saw “a genuine threat and took action to protect the lives of others,” arguing that Neely was “insanely threatening” to passengers aboard the subway train.

While Penny’s defense will argue that he had no intent to kill Neely, prosecutor Steinglass has noted that the second-degree manslaughter charge only requires prosecutors to prove Penny acted recklessly, not intentionally.

“We are confident that a jury, aware of Danny’s actions in putting aside his own safety to protect the lives of his fellow riders, will deliver a just verdict,” Penny’s lawyers, Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff, said earlier this year, after Penny’s request to dismiss the charge was denied.

“This case is simple. Someone got on a train and was screaming so someone else choked them to death,” Neely family attorney Donte Mills said in a past statement to ABC News. “Those two things do not and will never balance. There is no justification.”

“Jordan had the right to take up his own space. He was allowed to be on that train and even to scream. He did not touch anyone. He was not a visitor on that train, in New York, or in this country,” Mills added.

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(NEW YORK) — Righteous Torrance “Chevy” Hill had great plans for his future, cut short by a fatal shooting in front of his own home in February.

Hill, a transgender man, left behind a budding legacy of activism as the founder of an LGBTQ-focused salon and barber shop called Evollusion. The salon was born out of his desire for a space where he and other clients weren’t faced with uncomfortable or disparaging comments.

“There’s a need for this,” said Terri Wilson, Hill’s partner of six years. Their relationship began at the salon when Wilson herself came to get her hair done.

The two stayed talking for hours, a common occurrence at Evollusion. Clients often made themselves comfortable in the salon well after the end of their appointments to discuss politics, society and life in the shop — the salon was abuzz with laughter or chatter.

“He wanted to make sure that the trans community had the resources that they need,” Wilson told ABC News.

Wilson told ABC News that Hill believed Atlanta, often touted for having a large and inclusive LGBTQ+ community, was the perfect place to create such a space. Wilson has vowed to continue his work following his passing.

“Grief just hits out of nowhere, like the day can be going wonderful, and then I can just think of something or read something or see something online that I want to share with him, and I know that I’m not able to share it with him,” Wilson said.

Hill is one of at least 36 transgender and gender non-conforming victims of fatal violence from last year’s Transgender Remembrance Day to this year’s, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the vast majority of whom were killed by a gun. Some anti-gun violence advocates told ABC News that growing anti-transgender sentiment in the U.S. is a major cause for concern for the trans community.

“No matter what gender they are, what socioeconomic class they’re from, what race or ethnicity they are — those lives mattered and a lot of the policies that we have in place and even the way that we investigate these homicides send a message about the disposability of these lives,” Sarah Burd-Sharps, Senior Director of Research of gun safety advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, told ABC News.

New research from Everytown published in honor of Transgender Remembrance Day on Wednesday aims to highlight the impact gun violence has had on the trans community. Everytown found that roughly 7 in 10 transgender victims are killed with a gun, which is similar to the national rate. Black transgender residents — particularly Black transgender women — face the brunt of this gun violence, according to Everytown.

More than half of all transgender gun homicides took place in the South, according to Everytown. Burd-Sharps also notes these deaths happen predominantly in Southern states with more lenient gun laws.

Hill was shot outside his home in the Atlanta suburb of East Point, Georgia on Feb. 28, 2024, and pronounced dead the following day. In Georgia, about 95% of the trans or gender-expansive victims since 2013 — when the Human Rights Campaign began tracking these deaths — were killed with a gun.

Some researchers argue that violence toward trans people cannot be considered without the context of anti-transgender legislation and rhetoric.

“What it does is it sows further division. It creates an environment where even more hatred exists, which in turn creates more violence against trans folks,” Tori Cooper, the Human Rights Campaign’s director of community engagement, told ABC News.

Federal, state and local agencies across the country have warned about increases in anti-LGBTQ+ violence in recent years as state legislatures break records, introducing more than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills nationwide.

“Words matter, policies matter,” Moms Demand Action Executive Director Angela Ferrell-Zabala told ABC News in an interview on the Everytown report. “When we go down this road of dehumanizing and taking away rights from folks … it’s hard for folks to access health care and other things and just kind of live full lives, then that’s contributing to the problem of violence in this country.”

Both the HRC and Everytown note in their research that there may be other cases of fatal violence against transgender or gender-expansive people that have gone unreported or misreported and, therefore, not recorded in the official count.

Researchers and advocates say deadnaming, misgendering and bias in policing or reporting may hinder efforts to track and solve these cases properly.

“Every life is important, and we need to make sure that we’re protecting everybody,” Ferrell-Zabala said. “Media and law enforcement have a duty to make sure they’re correctly reporting people’s names and genders. It’s not only out of respect for victims and their loved ones and communities, but also so that the research on the ongoing violence against transgender people is accurately understood and represented.”

According to Wilson, Hill was misgendered by law enforcement after his death, despite having the correct gender markers on his ID.

“It’s frustrating because a person who respectfully asks you to address them in a certain way, their request should be accepted. Their request should be recognized. It’s not hurting anyone else,” Wilson said. “It’s frustrating for me, so I can only understand how frustrating it was for him. It’s just from going from medical professionals, going through TSA, law enforcement.”

However, she said East Point’s LGBTQ liaison reached out to her following his death: “They have an LGBT Task Force, and they did have one of the representatives who was over this task force reach out to me, which I did appreciate,” Wilson said.

East Point didn’t respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Everytown researchers also found that clearances of trans homicides — “incidents where a perpetrator is arrested, charged, and given to the court for prosecution, or is otherwise identified” — are lower than among homicides overall nationally. Hill’s loved ones waited more than six months for the suspect — Hill’s cousin Jaylen Hill — turned himself police, and hope the arrest can finally bring some relief in the fight for justice.

Jaylen Hill is in pre-indictment hearings on potential charges of murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm. Jaylen Hill’s legal team has not yet responded to ABC News’ request for comment.

“I can’t be consumed with Jaylen and what his punishment is, because all of this revolves around [Hill]. [Hill] lost his life,” Wilson said. “So continuing what he was doing is definitely at the forefront of receiving justice for [Hill].”

Some researchers hope the new data can help law enforcement agencies and city officials nationwide to address growing concerns about anti-LGBTQ+ violence and the role gun violence plays in these deaths.

Officials in neighboring Atlanta — which has LGBTQ+ liaisons on the city and public safety levels — said it’s working to implement programs to improve the safety and concerns of the LGBTQ+ community in the region. Chief Equity Officer Candace M. Stanciel pointed to the city’s Human Relations Commission which investigates reports of discrimination or the revision of standard operating procedures for local public safety officials on how to engage with the transgender community.

“We look forward to even growing the partnership and the work that we continue to do with all of our public safety teams around supporting LGBTQ communities as a whole,” Stanciel told ABC News.

Wilson hopes Hill can be remembered for his “unconditional love.”

“He didn’t have any enemies,” said Wilson. “He had a forgiving heart. He was selfless, he was genuine. He always wanted everyone to succeed. He could see in you what you couldn’t see in yourself.”

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